Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The South Bend Tribune is reporting that Bill Kirk is no longer the University of Notre Dame's associate vice president for residence life. This report seems to be clearly related to other news:

1. Mike Ragone will apparently be eligible to play for the Fighting Irish this season despite this incredibly bone-headed move to get arrested for possession of marijuana on May 8th, and

2. Rev. Mark Poorman, vice president for student affairs, announced last fall that he would be stepping down from that post.

Reading between the lines, it appears that University leadership may have come around to the same opinion as Charlie Weis and many disgruntled alumni and students that the "Res Life" office at Notre Dame was out of control and was having a detrimental impact on the Notre Dame community. Thus, an overhaul of the entire organization, with Mike Ragone as the first (and darn lucky) beneficiary of the changes.

I expect that Notre Dame will continue to hold its athletes and all its students to a high standard of expected behavior. But I also hope that these changes are a harbinger of the introduction of some common sense and some compassion into the Res Life disciplinary process.

4 comments:

I am a former ND classmate of Bill Kirk, and he is a great guy. He was a class officer and very well liked.

Unfortunately, the Dean of Students has never won a popularity contest at any university. Bill's job was to enforce the rules, and that is never a popular thing.

I have no inside info, but it seems as though the newly appointed Fr. Doyle wants to bring in his own people, so Fr. Poorman and Bill Kirk are not the ones he wants there anymore. It is probably just as simple as that. Politics, in government, business or academia, sometimes happens like this when a new leader takes charge.

Let's not beat up Bill, but thank him for his service, appreciate that he did a great job to the best of his ability, and wish him luck in the future.

Actually, Fr. Doyle is stepping in to take over Fr. Poorman's position. Poorman is returning to teaching.

Any further word on why Kirk is leaving?

Kirk was a nice man, but some of the stuff that happened under his tenure was just crazy. It's one thing to enforce the rules. It's another to bend over backwards to bow before the letter of the law and violate the heart of the law.

Dome Cam

Notre Dame Football Twitter Feed

Twitter Updates

About OC Domer

I am a 1986 graduate of the University of Notre Dame living in the heart of Orange County, California. Working hard and raising two kids with my wonderful wife (SMC '86), I'm running the rat race like everyone else I see on the freeways of Southern California. I am passionate about my family and my University. My family won't want me blogging about them, but the University doesn't seem to mind. So I'll share my opinions about Fighting Irish football, the University in general, politics, and anything else that comes to mind.